


This Life You Didn't Choose

by SemperIntrepida



Series: Elegiad [15]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Playthrough, F/F, a slight divergence from canon but we'll get to the same place in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23102533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemperIntrepida/pseuds/SemperIntrepida
Summary: In which Kassandra pays the price for drinking to forget, and discovers an unexpected truth about Kyra's past.
Relationships: Barnabas & Kassandra (Assassin's Creed), Kassandra/Kyra (Assassin's Creed)
Series: Elegiad [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531004
Comments: 19
Kudos: 58





	This Life You Didn't Choose

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot is part of a linked series of stories, and while you don't have to read them all, they do combine into a unified narrative.

Kassandra awoke to darkness and the rough scratch of wool against her nose. It was unbearably hot. Her fingers scrabbled at thick fabric, and she flung the blanket aside only to instantly regret it: sunshine obliterated her sight, and she closed her eyes against the searing brightness, golden halos dancing behind her eyelids. She turned her head, her cheek coming to rest on cool hardness. Wood. She cracked open an eye, blinked back the harsh light, and saw wooden planks stretching out to meet blue skies. The deck of a ship, rocking her gently. She was on the deck of the Adrestia.

If only she could remember how she'd gotten there.

A voice floated over from behind her. "About damn time you woke up." She knew that voice, tried to think of the name of its owner between the heartbeats that sent her blood banging into the sides of her skull. Gelon.

She groaned. "I feel like death," she said to the planks at the end of her nose.

"You drank so much, Dionysos himself would have fled in shame. I'm impressed."

The wood under Kassandra's cheek was starting to feel hot. She rolled over, closing her eyes as the world smeared into a dizzy swirl and her stomach flopped over like an empty waterskin. When she opened them again, her spear loomed huge in her vision, resting on the deck nearby, and in the background, Gelon sat on a bench near the helm, a coil of rope in her lap and another on the deck at her feet.

"You sure know how to fucking party, misthios. I doubt this crew's ever seen a show that entertaining, and come to think of it, neither have I."

"I don't remember. Anything."

Gelon's head popped up from her work. "Really?" she said. Then she lowered her voice. "Not even what you and I did later for the grand finale? Now you're hurting my only feeling."

Kassandra blinked. She and Gelon didn't... did they? She tried to remember, tried to think, but her blood was pounding against her eyeballs as if they were drumheads. She suffered a glance down at herself. She was still wearing her chiton. That was good. She had no idea where her armor was. That was bad. Then she sniffed the air: sweat and sour wine, but none of the musky afterscents of sex.

"You're full of shit," she said to Gelon.

Gelon gave her a thief's grin. "You're so fun to fuck with," she said cheerfully. "Don't you worry — you ended up as chaste as Hestia. Blue-balled most of your crew, though."

What in Hades had she done last night?

"But if you ever change your mind..." Gelon's eyes glittered as she peered at Kassandra. "We'd have to sort out who's on bottom, though, because it sure as shit ain't gonna be me without a fight."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kassandra said, her voice as dry as the inside of her mouth. She pressed a hand against the deck and pushed herself upright. Her head swam, and so did her stomach.

Gelon set aside the rope she was splicing, came over, and offered Kassandra a hand. Kassandra took it, and Gelon pulled her to her feet and over to the rail. Gelon's hand was solid and square, her leathery skin roughened from the scrape of rope and wood, thickened by salt and wind. So unlike Kyra's—

Kassandra shook the thought away and leaned heavily against the railing. She felt wrung out, her limbs wobbling, Kharybdis in her stomach. She needed water, and to figure out where her armor went.

But first, she'd fold her arms on the rail and rest her head inside their comforting darkness for a while. Just for a little while. Gods, she'd never drink so much again.

.oOo.

Her armor was piled neatly on her bunk. Evidently, she'd been smart enough to take it off before she started drinking. She'd also been smart enough to put a jug of water nearby, not that _that_ plan had come to fruition with her ending up on the deck instead of her bed. She lifted the jug and drank straight from it, tilting her head back and enjoying the cool droplets that spattered against her chest and collarbones. The water put a dent in her headache and muted her heartbeat to a pulsing throb behind her eyes, but her scalp still felt tight and her stomach queasy.

A hot soak followed by a steam bath sounded perfect. She could use the steam to sweat the wine out from her pores. Perhaps she could even sweat away the thoughts of Kyra that clung to her like tar. Lips brushing her cheek. _You breathe life into me._

Her hands shook slightly as she knelt next to the bunk and dragged her trunk out from under it. Even empty the trunk had been heavy, and she rested her palms against its dense wood and let it steady her before she opened the lid and pulled out a clean change of clothes. Inside, a small wooden figurine of an eagle watched over her belongings, and she patted its head just as she always did whenever she saw it.

She changed clothes, and put on her armor, and when she emerged onto the deck, Barnabas was waiting for her by the hatch. "We might have some trouble, Captain," he said, tilting his head towards the dock below. "Athenians. Here to talk to you."

She stepped close to him and spoke quietly. "Can we depart quickly if we have to?" The ache in her head was threatening to flare up again.

"Nearly so."

"Good. If a fight starts, leave. I'll catch up to you later."

"Aye, Captain."

She strolled to the top of the gangplank. Below her, the Athenian soldiers stood like grapes in a cluster around the gangplank's stem, ten of them by her count, with their Captain at the front and center. His helm was topped with the oversized crest of blue, white, and gold that all Athenian officers wore. It may have made him look imposing from a distance, but up close, he still had to look up into her eyes.

"Podarkes wants to see you, misthios," he said without preamble.

"Why?"

"You don't need to know why, just that he does."

"I don't answer to Podarkes — only Perikles, when he's asking _me_ for favors."

"You expect me to believe that boast?"

"You can believe what you want, and then you can go back to Podarkes and tell him he has nothing to say that might interest me."

"And if I _insisted_ you come with me?"

She smiled, even though it made her skull want to split right down the middle. "With only ten men?" Several hands slowly moved to rest on sword pommels, but she held the smile and remained still. "Look. It's a beautiful day, and I'd rather not spend it creating orphans." She also had a hangover and was trying real hard not to vomit on his sandals, but he didn't need to know that part.

He drew himself taller. "Then you can tell Kyra that her execution will be long and painful."

Slow, steady breath in. Slow, steady breath out. She imagined drawing her spear and carving him up ten different ways, each more bloody than the last, but she knew he'd cast this net in search of a reaction. Her eyeballs were pounding again, and even though her fingers twitched, longing to grab her spear and start cutting, it really was too beautiful a day to spill blood. "I don't know who that is," she said.

He opened his mouth to say something but she continued speaking right over him. "Tell me, Captain... How many men did you lose at the fort last night?"

His brow furrowed. "One. Plus a few injured." The soldiers around him glanced at each other.

"Seems to me things could have been much worse." She paused a beat, then asked, "Where are you from?" though she already knew the answer by the way his voice held on to his vowels, spreading them out like spilled honey.

"What does that have to do—"

"You're a long way from Argolis, my friend." She lifted her right hand and began studying the callouses on her palm. "I spent some time there recently. Beautiful place. It's a shame you've been asked to do all this work on a far-away island that doesn't appreciate it."

Silence.

"As it is, you might want to make _extra_ sure your men get paid this month."

He couldn't see the looks being swapped between the soldiers behind him but she didn't need him to. Her words had planted the seed.

"Now, is there anything else you need, Captain?"

He looked away, unable to meet her gaze. "No. We're done here, misthios." He turned on his heel, and his soldiers stepped aside to let him pass, then fell into formation behind him.

She watched them leave. Flexed her fingers, swiveled her head to stretch tense muscles in her neck. Footsteps sounded on the gangplank behind her, and she sensed it was Barnabas approaching before he appeared at her left shoulder.

"Did you hear all that?" she asked him.

"Aye. This Podarkes needs a whipping from the Furies."

"He's getting desperate."

"I'll call the crew on leave back to the ship."

"And I'll look for a safer port." She was just about to say a farewell when a thread of memory worked itself free and stopped her short. "Did you ever make it to your olive grove?"

"No. I've been busy with repairs and crew schedules, and then watching over Iola..." He trailed off.

"Where is it?"

"At the base of the Statue of Artemis. Her blessed right foot points the way."

"You should go. This afternoon."

He hesitated. "Will you come with me?" In the morning light, his good eye was the same sun-faded blue as the Athenian banners that flew around the port. "If you feel up to it, that is. I hear Gelon wore you out last night."

"I did _not_ sleep with Gelon."

His eye sparkled above his grin. "How do you know?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. "Well, she said we didn't," she offered.

He burst into laughter. "And you believed her?"

She waved both hands in front of her in a gesture that said _enough_. "This is not up for discussion," she said.

Barnabas chuckled the entire time they traded farewells, and he'd planted just enough doubt that she couldn't help but ransack her memory while she walked briskly through the port and into Mykonos City, heading for the baths. What if she _had_ slept with Gelon? Judging from Gelon's reaction, there were no feelings involved, no expectations to reset, no bruises to soothe...

Kassandra blew out a long breath. She'd been a fool for drinking so much. She should have gone out to the city and found someone who stirred her blood enough to want to bed them, to let the slide of skin over skin and the mix of breath into breath cut away her longing. How hard could it be to forget someone she'd known only a couple of weeks?

She wandered the maze of staircases and narrow streets that made up much of the city with only half an eye on where she was going, and it was only after she'd passed through the entrance to the baths that she realized she'd been gritting her teeth the entire way.

.oOo.

The midday sun blazed overhead as she reined Phobos in at the perimeter of the Spartan camp, its not-quite-summer heat cut by the sea breeze that blew in from the water.

The Spartans had planted their banner in a small cove surrounded by steep, rocky hillsides. They'd conceded the high ground in favor of a camp right on the beach, but no Athenian in their right mind would want to descend those slopes fully geared and armored. The only practical access was from the beach she stood on.

Large barricades fashioned from sharpened poles were positioned strategically across the sand, acting as a funnel to draw everything that approached the camp towards a single point guarded by sentries. She nudged Phobos into a walk, and raised her hand in greeting.

"I'm here to see Thaletas," she said.

"You're welcome here, Eagle Bearer. Go on in."

She rode Phobos to the remnants of an old shipwreck that stuck out from the sand, and then she dismounted and looped his lead around one of the protruding timbers.

Her soak in the baths had helped her headache fade to a dull band of tightness behind her eyes, and her stomach had settled somewhat, though it was still more sour than hungry. She felt clean at least, but if there were dark circles under her eyes and a lack of color to her skin, it couldn't be helped now.

As she entered the cove, Thaletas's voice rose up over the wind, booming with the cadence of command. He stood on what was left of the deck of another wrecked ship, giving a speech to the dozen soldiers he had left.

Seeing him was like pressing down on a bruise, and she was reluctant to come here even though she'd told him she would. But she had another reason for subjecting herself to the ache: she wanted to know what kind of man Thaletas was, beyond their brief interactions in passing. Who was he when Kyra wasn't around?

"The Battle of the Three Hundred?" he was saying. "Leonidas was lucky to have that many men!"

It really was a very pretty speech, and when he was finished, she clapped, slowly, ignoring the irritated stares his soldiers shot her way as they dispersed. Apparently they liked him well enough to feel protective of him.

He jumped down from his makeshift platform onto the sand. "Kassandra. I didn't think you'd come here so quickly."

"And miss such a fine speech?"

"Athenians give speeches. Spartans give orders."

"What was the order for today? Hold this beach?"

She was trying to rile him up, but all he gave her was a tight smile. "We've had little to do while you've been running around setting things on fire."

"It takes effort to smoke out a human sized rat."

"Indeed. Burning down the fort was genius, but making Kyra go in there alone was a huge risk."

"Kyra rose to the challenge."

"What if something had gone wrong?" It was unlike a Spartan to worry about such things, and even more so to admit it out loud. His feelings for Kyra had some depth to them, then.

"Failure isn't one of my habits."

His eyes searched her face, looking for something. "I suppose I should expect no less from the granddaughter of King Leonidas."

So he did know who she was. "How did you find that out?"

"A tale from Korinth, where they say Kassandra of Sparta chopped the Monger down to size in single combat. Kassandra the Eagle Bearer, the long lost granddaughter of kings."

"I am not 'of Sparta.' I've been exiled for twenty years."

"Sparta still remembers you."

All those years, and the same twinge still spidered out from her heart when she thought too hard about Sparta, a mix of curiosity and longing. She was always careful to keep it from lingering. "The Sparta that wanted my brother and I dead? 'Duty to Sparta before all else, duty before family,'" she spat, the words like knives in her tongue. "I'll never abide by Sparta's rules. Exile suits me just fine."

"Don't be so quick to judge us all as simple limbs connected to one mind. All of Sparta knows your story, and many would say your survival shows the true will of the gods. They'd welcome you back."

Another Spartan had said something similar to her: Brasidas, back in Korinth. He was probably the source of the tale Thaletas had heard, too. "Are you trying to recruit me?"

"I'd be a fool not to. Your methods are unconventional, but effective. And I judged them wrongly."

She dipped her head, acknowledging his admission. "Glad to see you come around," she said. "But I doubt you asked me to come here just to tell me that."

"No. I was hoping you could help me with a... small matter."

Interesting, that bit of hesitation. "Go on," she said.

"I lost a helm when the Alekto — my ship — sank."

"Not just any helm, I take it?"

"It was my pater's." He looked away, as if embarrassed. "I was hoping you might look for it, if you ever found yourself near the wreck."

A family heirloom. She understood those. She tried to imagine not having her spear, and couldn't. They'd have to pry it out of her dead fingers. "Where did the wreck happen?" she asked.

"Not far from here, along the beach to the west."

"What does the helm look like?"

"Bronze, like the Korinthians wear, with a red crest and the initials "MT" scratched inside at the base of the neck."

"I'll find it."

"I'll be in your debt if you do," he said. Then his eyes settled on the hilt of her spear where it rose above her shoulder. "Is that truly King Leonidas's spear?"

"Yes."

"My pater... He pried that helm from _his_ pater's head at Thermopylai."

Thermopylai, where three hundred Spartans fought and died and became legends.

The two of them stood silently, in the company of the ghosts they'd summoned, thinking of the expectations that had been thrust upon them just by being born of certain blood.

.oOo.

One glance at the shattered remains of the Alekto told Kassandra that diving into the wreck in search of Thaletas's lost helm would only waste her time. The ship had been picked clean, with every rope, scrap of metal, and plank of wood small enough for a person to carry ending up part of a scavenger's windfall. Only the spine of the keel and ribs of the hull were left jutting out from the shallows.

She watched the waves splay around the exposed timbers, and thought of vultures, and how they gorged themselves on flesh until they were so fat and heavy they could hardly move.

The scavengers, whoever they were, probably hadn't gone far.

Behind her, the forest stretched down from the hills to dig its roots into the sand, and where the beach ended, a veil of shadow hung from a thick canopy of palm fronds and pine boughs. There was no birdsong, no rustling of animals in the underbrush — only the crash of waves and rasp of her own breath.

She was not alone here.

As she considered her options for what to do next, a familiar call sounded high above her, and she extended her arm out and waited for Ikaros to arrive. Soon enough, the air beat against her face and hair and shoulder as he came in for landing, his wings stretched wide to slow him down. Then his weight settled onto her wrist, and he looked at her with his piercing gaze.

She scritched her fingers under his chin and murmured sweet words to him that would ruin her tough reputation if anyone were to overhear them. He chirruped happily and shimmied from side to side, and she smiled at his pleasure, content to stand and watch the sea for a while.

Ikaros suddenly pointed his gaze behind her, towards the forest. His posture remained relaxed, and he tilted his head in curiosity, and then, between the sound of the waves, came the quiet squeak of feet sinking into dry sand, the steps quick and light.

"Who is it, Ikaros?" she asked. "A wood nymph?"

The footsteps stopped, followed by an indrawn breath that belonged to someone far too young to be much of a threat. Kassandra turned around slowly.

A child was rooted in the sand, chewing a thumbnail on a dirty hand and staring at her with wide eyes in an equally dirty face. He couldn't have been older than five. His hair was cropped short and full of pine needles, and he pulled his thumb away from his mouth just long enough to ask, "Are you the Eagle Bearer?"

Kassandra was wrong: the voice was that of a little girl, one who appeared ready to bolt at any moment. Kassandra lowered herself onto her knees and smiled. "Yes, I am," she said, "but my name is Kassandra, and this is Ikaros."

"Ikaros," the girl repeated. She stepped closer, but kept outside Kassandra's easy reach.

This girl hadn't come here on her own. "Did the others send you because you're the brave one?"

She shook her head. She'd either drawn the short straw or been deemed expendable.

"Are you scared?"

A nod, and the girl's eyes tracked from Kassandra's face to the hilt of the spear at her shoulder and the sword at her waist.

"Then you're the bravest of us all."

The girl gave Kassandra a tiny smile and stopped chewing at her fingers.

"What's your name?"

"Thea."

"Well, Thea, are you here to hire a misthios?"

The girl giggled. "No." She looked down at her toes, half-buried in the sand. "We wanted to see if it was really you. The one who's helping the rebels."

"Who's we?"

Thea turned and waved towards the forest, and children materialized from the trees, running out across the beach in whirlwinds of gangly arms and legs.

Moments later, Kassandra was surrounded by a dozen children chattering with excitement, each with a hundred different things to say. Ikaros kept swiveling his head from the children to Kassandra and back, and she ruffled his chest feathers before letting him take flight, much to her audience's enjoyment. It triggered another onslaught of questions, all jumbled on top of each other.

She gestured for silence and said, "Hold on, hold on," and was surprised when a dozen mouths closed and a dozen pairs of eyes looked at her expectantly. "How many of you have questions?"

Every one of them raised a hand.

This was going to take a while. She picked one at random, pointed at him, and said, "Ask."

"If you're the Eagle Bearer, then you've met Kyra, right?"

She blinked. Apparently, there would be no escaping Kyra's ghost on Mykonos. "Yes, I have."

"What's she like?"

"Hey! That's two questions," Thea said, lifting her voice in protest.

Kassandra looked at the boy and said apologetically, "She's got a point," before nodding at Thea and saying, "So what's your question, then?"

"What's Kyra like?"

Hero worship, is what it was. Kassandra had to snort with amusement, despite how every mention of Kyra clanged against her heart, making it ring hollow and false like a piece of miscast bronze. And now a dozen shining, expectant faces wanted her to describe their hero in glorious detail.

"She's smart. Very smart. Fierce, too, and braver than anyone I've ever met," she said, none of it even close to describing the real thing, the essential Kyra, the way her muscles slid over her bones with no wasted movement; the way she could go so still, as patient as a Sphinx; the way her tooth caught on her bottom lip when she grinned, which happened often when she was relaxed and never when she wasn't; the way her mind sliced problems into chunks and put them back together into solutions...

"Is she nice?" one of them asked.

Then the gates opened, and questions came at Kassandra all in a rush.

"Can she really shoot an arrow through a man's eye from a hundred paces?"

"Did she burn the fort down all by herself?"

Kassandra held her hands out again. "Hold on," she said, waiting until the chatter died down. "I'll answer your questions, but first you'll have to answer one of mine." She pointed her thumb over her shoulder at the shipwreck behind her. "What happened to that ship?"

One of the older boys spoke up. "The Athenians made it wreck on the beach." He was close to Phoibe's age, his body still catching up to his spindly limbs, and his eyes looked at her from under dusty curls.

"Where did the stuff on the ship go?"

"The Spartans took a bunch of it with them." He started bouncing his weight from foot to foot, while his gaze kept shifting between Kassandra and the wreck.

"I'm looking for something that was on that ship," Kassandra said. "A helm. I don't care about the rest of it."

His bouncing stopped. "We took all of it."

"You?" She gestured at the assembled children.

"Well, we helped. The big kids tore it down and we dragged it back to camp." No mention of any adults.

"Will you take me there?"

The children glanced among themselves. "Meli might get angry," Thea said.

"I'm sure it'll be fine once this Meli and I have a chat."

"You don't know her. She gets angry a lot."

"Take me to her." Kassandra would find out what sort of anger she was up against soon enough.

.oOo.

The camp huddled in a smoky, forested hollow between the ribs of the hills above the beach. She smelled the smoke first, followed by the sharp stench of sewage, which faded before they reached the first ramshackle hovels at the camp's edge.

As soon as the first huts came into sight between the trees, the children who'd brought her from the beach scattered in every direction, joining dozens and dozens of other children roaming about the camp, some running around at play, others dragging wooden planks and lengths of rope behind them. Joyful shrieks cut through the hazy air, and the sound of wood pounding against wood echoed through the trees. The shipwreck had been a boon, its raw materials being used to reinforce crude huts made from rough-cut tree branches and pine boughs, all of them clearly the work of children.

Young faces stared at her as she approached the camp, none of them older than Phoibe — and then Kassandra was seven years old again, passing through the orphan camp on the outskirts of Sami for the first time, a stranger surrounded by wary, distrustful gazes on every side, sizing her up, reading her signs. Without Thea or any of the other children from the beach to vouch for her, she could only hope that her reputation as the Eagle Bearer would serve her here as well as it had earlier.

She held out her arm and whistled for Ikaros, knowing he'd been following her through the forest, and once he settled onto her hand, she gently moved him to her shoulder. "I know it's not your favorite perch, but humor me, okay?" she told him.

Then a voice called out to her: "Misthios, over here." An adult's voice, so unexpected it made Kassandra's head swivel in search of its source. A woman cradling a baby stepped out from behind a tree to Kassandra's right, beckoning her to follow, and she led Kassandra deeper into the forest, to a small clearing where the sounds of shouting and laughter weren't as loud.

"What is this camp?" Kassandra asked.

"It's Podarkes's garden. The fruits of his reaping." The woman may have been an adult, but there was something off about the way she spoke. Her eyes darted around, as erratic as the flight of insects.

"Orphans? All of them?"

"Yes."

"And who are you?"

"My name is Otonia. Someone has to care for the littlest ones," she said, gently rocking the baby in her arms. "That someone is me. The others look after each other, until they grow old enough to join the rebels like their hero, Kyra."

"Who feeds them?"

"Kyra does. Sends supplies, too, when she can spare them." Otonia's eyes glittered. "Many whispers of your deeds float on the wind, Eagle Bearer. Many whispers. And secrets, too. Dangerous ones."

"If you know something, spit it out."

Otonia lowered her voice to a whisper so faint Kassandra had to lean in close to hear it. "Kyra's a hero to these orphans because they think she's one of them. How wrong they are!"

Kassandra narrowed her eyes. "What are you saying?"

"There's a house beneath a walkway in the drowned city. Been boarded up for ages. Sneaky sneak your way in. But hurry before Podarkes's men get there first."

"This better not be a waste of my time."

"No waste, misthios! Only danger for Kyra. Better _you_ find out before someone else. All you need to know is in that house." The baby wiggled and began to fuss. "Shhh, little one. We're going back now. The crowd's already waiting for our guest."

Otonia was right: a crowd was waiting for them at the edge of the camp where the first huts began. The children moved aside to let Otonia pass, and she carried the baby into the camp, leaving Kassandra behind.

By Kassandra's rough count, there were four, maybe five dozen children staring at her, along with a group of youths who stood at the front. She recognized Thea next to one of them, a lanky girl with straw-colored hair who looked about fourteen. Two boys of similar age stood to either side.

The lanky girl spoke first. "Who are you?" she demanded.

Thea tugged on her tunic and whispered, "She's the Eagle Bearer!"

"Wasn't asking you," the girl said as she flicked Thea's ear.

Thea winced in pain and clapped a hand over her ear.

Kassandra crossed her arms. "But Thea's right, though. I am the Eagle Bearer."

"What do you want?"

"Do you speak for everyone?"

The girl glanced at the boys to either side of her, then leveled her gaze at Kassandra and said, "Well enough."

"Then do me the honor of telling me your name."

" _You_ can call me Melitta." Everyone else called her Meli.

"And you can call me Kassandra."

"You didn't answer my question, Kassandra." Gods, was there something in the water that made little girls grow up fierce on Mykonos?

"I'm looking for something, and I think you have it."

Melitta turned and gave a dismissive gesture to the others. "Beat it!" she said. "The misthios and I are going to talk."

The children dispersed like bees leaving a hive, but Kassandra knew curious eyes would follow her wherever she went. Melitta gestured for Kassandra to follow, and together they walked between the hovels, deeper into the camp.

"What is it you're looking for, Eagle Bearer?"

"A Spartan helm. Korinthian style, with a red crest."

"Yours?"

"A friend's."

"We might have it." Melitta led her through the chaos of huts, woodpiles, crates, and other detritus, until they reached a larger, shed-like building that faced out towards a clearing that served as a yard. What appeared to be a ship's brazier burned by the building's doorway, and Kassandra thought she saw bronze glinting in the darkness within.

"How long did it take you to strip the ship?" Kassandra asked.

"Many weeks. But we got most of the valuable stuff in a couple of days." They would have had to. Scavengers could smell drachmae in the water from leagues away. "Wait here."

Kassandra raised her hand to her shoulder, letting Ikaros hop upon it, but he only stayed long enough to spread his wings and take flight. He landed on the mossy roof of the shed, turning his head this way and that.

A short while later, Melitta emerged carrying three helmets in her arms. "Hope you can figure out which one's the right one."

"It's supposed to have the letters 'M' and 'T' scratched inside it."

Melitta shrugged narrow shoulders and handed her one of the helms. "You'd have to tell me."

Kassandra rejected it immediately; it was too new to have seen battle at Thermopylai. The second helm had nothing scratched inside it, but the third did, a faint "M" and "T" at the back of the neck. Gouged and battered, it had taken on a faint greenish tinge after its saltwater bath, but it was Thaletas's missing helm, and it would be hers after she negotiated its release.

"This is the one. How much for it?"

"Two hundred drachmae — and your sword."

Kassandra had to admire Melitta's moxie. The Wolf of Sparta's kopis was worth far more than this helmet would ever bring in on the open market. "Fifty drachmae. My sword's not part of the deal."

"Two hundred. And you'll tell Kyra I'm ready to join the rebels."

Kassandra looked at Melitta again. Tall for her age. Skinny. Given time, she'd grow into her lankiness and end up with a build similar to Kyra's: lean as a dagger. She had dirt under her nails and the swollen knuckles of someone used to doing hard work with their hands.

"Are you?" Kassandra asked. She set Thaletas's helm on the ground near the brazier, then nodded at the blade sheathed at Melitta's waist. "Show me."

The dagger appeared in Melitta's left hand almost instantly. The smooth draw was promising, but her left-handedness was what Kassandra found interesting. Melitta was self-taught. No teacher or parent would have allowed that hand to become dominant. With practice, she could use it to her advantage, just as Kassandra did every time she fought with a blade in each hand.

Kassandra drew her spear, grinning as she took a few steps back, giving them room to circle the yard. Small faces began gathering around the perimeter. They'd have an audience.

Sparring with live blades was dangerous even at half speed, and here she faced a youth of uncertain skill who was determined to prove herself. Kassandra stayed on the defensive, turning aside Melitta's swipes while she backpedaled in a circle. She wanted to see how Melitta moved: how she balanced, how she kept her feet under her, how she positioned herself relative to her opponent. And when Kassandra had seen her fill of that, she wanted to know how Melitta would react when pushed.

"Is that the best your stinger can do, little bee?" Kassandra said.

Melitta's frustration had been growing with every attack Kassandra parried, and Kassandra's jibe had needled her to anger. It was meant to. The swipes came faster, with less balance and control behind them. Time for Kassandra to show some teeth. She waited until Melitta's blade swung towards her, then caught it with the edge of her spear, whipping her wrist in a tight circle that ripped the dagger right out of Melitta's hand and sent it skidding across the dirt.

Melitta shook out her wrist. "It's not fair. You're taller, and your arms are longer."

 _"Fair?"_ Kassandra said, and without warning she lunged at Melitta and used her foot to sweep the girl's legs right out from under her. She landed hard in the dirt, Kassandra standing tall above her. "Nothing's fair."

Melitta's eyes blazed with outrage, and she leapt back to her feet.

Kassandra drew her sword, flipped it so its point hung towards the earth, and offered it to Melitta, hilt first.

The girl took it and swung it experimentally.

"A longer blade gives you what?" Kassandra asked.

"Reach."

"Now _you_ have the advantage."

Kassandra leapt out of the way of the first swing, parried the next, and then, as Melitta tired herself out with ineffective attacks, Kassandra gradually took the lead, engaging with combinations of strikes from various directions that Melitta tried her best to copy.

When they came to a halt a short while later, sword against spear, Melitta was panting. "It's heavy."

Kassandra smiled. "It only gets heavier the longer a fight wears on. The first few moments are all about speed and technique. After that, endurance." The sparring session had warmed up the long muscles of her legs and arms, and gotten her blood pumping. It had been far too long since she'd done this for fun, and guiding Melitta had been more enjoyable than she'd expected. Maybe she'd spar with Phoibe the next time she saw her.

Melitta handed back her sword, and looked at her expectantly as she returned both blades to their sheaths.

"You're not ready..." Kassandra began.

Her face crumpled like a banner falling to earth, but then she set her jaw and stared at Kassandra. Her eyes may have been blue where Kyra's were dark, but they were just a different shade of determination. "I want this. I'm not going to spend my life raising goats."

"I wasn't finished. You're not ready _now_ , but with training and practice you could be. I'll talk to Kyra." Kassandra stooped to pick up Thaletas's helm from where she'd left it, then untied her coin pouch from her belt and tossed it to Melitta. It would be more than enough. "I'm curious — what will you use the drachmae for?"

A variety of emotions rippled across Melitta's face. "Cloth. The little ones go through tunics like the seasons." She could have been Kyra ten years ago. She could be Phoibe five years from now.

Past and future blurred together. Kassandra tucked the helm under her arm. "I'll talk to Kyra. I promise."

.oOo.

The rebel hideout was on the way back to the city, and Kassandra had a helmet to drop off and an orphan to talk to Kyra about. At least that's what she told herself, as she slipped between the rocks at the entrance and nodded a greeting to the rebel sentries standing watch.

She knew she was a fool, and that Kyra was the last person she should see right now. And yet her feet carried her through the tunnel of stone at the cave mouth, and down the wooden steps to the central chamber.

_If only you'd come here before Thaletas..._

Kassandra had come in second, and yet here she was in disbelief.

A dozen rebel fighters sat in scattered groups around the central chamber. She spotted Praxos seated on a bench near the entrance, sharpening a sword on a whetstone.

He looked up as she approached. "Misthios! We missed you last night." He set the blade aside and grinned at her. "I was hoping we'd have our rematch."

"We'll have it soon," she said. She glanced around. "Is Kyra here?"

"No, she's been gone since sun-up. Don't know where."

"Know when she'll be back?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

She lifted the helm. "This is for her."

"Go on and leave it," he said, throwing a look behind him at the corridor that led deeper into the cave.

When she reached the doorway to Kyra's chamber, she paused and took a deep breath, then brushed aside the fabric that served as the door. She stepped into cool air, still and lifeless, scented faintly with wax, papyrus, and old ink. It reminded her of rooms she'd seen in Delphi and in Athens, filled with scrolls from wall to wall, rooms full of secrets.

Kassandra shivered, then set the helm on the table where they'd planned their attack on the fort; where their legs had almost, but not quite touched under the table; where the hours had passed like moments.

A moment was all she wanted to spend here, and she walked out to the corridor and returned to Praxos.

"Can you give Kyra a message when she returns?"

"Of course. What is it?"

"Tell her... I'd like to speak to her. Soon, if possible." Then she told him where Kyra could find her later and bid him farewell, and when she emerged, blinking into the afternoon sunlight, she knew exactly where she had to go.

.oOo.

Mykonos City was old, founded in the age when giants walked the earth and the gods were still young, and it had been built up over time in layers, buildings piled on top of buildings, its ascent prompted by the slowly rising seas that had made the lower levels uninhabitable. The submerged buildings were called the drowned city, and Poseidon had claimed them as part of his ever-growing kingdom.

Kassandra stood in cold seawater up to her shins, contemplating the heavy planks that criss-crossed the entrance to the house she'd found under the walkway, just where Otonia had said it would be. Whoever had boarded up the door had meant it; not only were the planks thick, but so were the iron pins that held them fast to either side of the doorway. She drew her spear and used its tip to probe between the boards, looking for any looseness or weak spots. There were none.

She stepped back, sheathed her spear. The waters of the drowned city were still and cold, shielded from the tides and waves by the breakwater of the port. She knew that if she looked off the edge of the submerged walkway she stood upon, she'd see the clear water retreat into darkness. How many secrets lived in those ancient depths?

She flexed her fingers, and then her legs were moving, the long muscles of thighs, hamstrings, and buttocks driving her forward like a sledgehammer. Her shoulder slammed square into the center of a plank with a solid thump that echoed off the still water around her. The board shuddered and bent inwards from the blow. Good. She did it again, and again, until the board was loose enough for her to work her fingers underneath an edge, giving herself enough grip to rip it from the doorway. After that, removing the rest of the planks was easy.

She had to step up to enter the room. The stone floor was dry, but in another year or two the water lapping at the threshold would rise high enough to trickle across the floor. She stood unmoving for several moments, listening to the water dripping from her greaves onto the stone and the far-off hum of the city.

The air inside the room was damp and stale, smelling of brine and a darker, mustier decay. It worked its way through her nostrils and sat malevolently on her tongue. Tomb air.

A low shelf ran along the wall to her right, and she pulled the torch she'd picked up at the market from her belt and placed it on the shelf so its oil-soaked rags hung over the edge. A spark from her flint set it ablaze, and she lifted it up and surveyed her surroundings.

The room hadn't held much to begin with, but someone had ransacked it anyway. Shelves hung off the walls, shards of pottery lay in scattered piles, and a pattern of brown smudges formed a track across the floor, from the far corner of the room to the doorway she was standing in. She knelt beside the tracks and drew the torch close. They could have been old blood, but it was hard to tell.

In the corner, the broken remnants of a large wooden chest rested beside a large, oblong stain on the floor in the unmistakable shape of a body, its flesh and bones long dissolved to dust. Something metallic glinted where the body's chest would have been, and she reached down and lifted a triangle of iron, sharp and light in her fingers. The tip of a spear. This room had witnessed a hard death, violent enough for a spear to hit bone — perhaps a sternum, or maybe a spine — and snap like a broken twig. And then, the body had been left out in the open to rot in the ultimate affront to the gods.

A set of stairs climbed to her right. They brought her to the upper floor, and a small room, ransacked like the first.

She swept the torch around her. More pottery. Broken wood. An old blanket, next to what looked like dolls—

They _were_ dolls: two of them, made of wood, smaller than half a handspan, arms and legs swiveling on knotted strings. She brought the larger doll into the flickering light of her torch. A child's hands had carved the wood into the rough shape of a woman's form, and had scratched the letter "M" into its back. The smaller doll looked more like a child, and when Kassandra turned it over, the letter "K" stared back at her.

She blew out the breath she'd suddenly been holding. _"K" for Kyra?_

She opened the pouch at her belt and placed the dolls inside.

Torchlight painted the walls orange, her shadow huge like a great black beast. She tried to imagine Kyra as a child, this place a home, lively with light and happiness, Kyra running up the stairs, little legs pumping, her cheeks puffed with exertion...

A golden-yellow glow on the floor caught her eye. A small fragment of papyrus, crumpled into a ball. Uncrumpled, the words made no sense. They began abruptly, at a torn and ragged edge: "—o shut your mouth", "—my house again", "—both to Hades." Threatening words, even without context.

She paced the room, looking for more. Nothing among the pottery, nothing among the wood, or the shelves. Nothing, until she kicked the blanket aside and sent another glowing ball skittering into the light. She arranged the flattened fragments on her palm. There was clearly a third piece still missing, but now there were enough words for her to guess the note's meaning.
    
    
    Dianthe,
    
    I pay you ve         o shut your mouth
    and stay awa         my house again,
    and I will se       both to Hades.
    -P
    

The threatening words, the casual cruelty, the means to board up a problem and make it go away. "P" had to be Podarkes.

... _both to Hades._ "M" and "K". Mother and child. Why would Podarkes go to such lengths to hide the existence of a child, only to threaten its life?

Unless... the child was his. _"K" for Kyra._

The implications were stunning. Dizzying. The words began to swim before her, and she read them again and again, just to be sure.

Could Kyra have known all along? Her singular focus on killing Podarkes had seemed genuine enough, but she'd also shown herself to be a skillful liar when she wanted to be. Skillful enough to carry such a heavy lie for years? Decades?

And if the rebels ever found out, they'd turn on Kyra in an instant. Blood was everything to some people, even if no one ever had a choice in that matter.

She tucked the fragments inside her pouch, next to the dolls already there.

A child's dolls. Two scraps of papyrus. Together, they revealed Kyra's secret. Together, they could put her in grave danger. And now they sat in a pouch at Kassandra's belt, waiting for her to figure out what the fuck she was going to do with everything she'd just learned.

.oOo.

Barnabas's olive grove was every bit as beautiful as he'd said it was: stately trees running in careful rows across the rolling hillsides, their leaves shining silvery-grey in the late afternoon sun. The sea was a backdrop of pale blue. In another hour, the light would soften and the crowns of the trees would turn to a honeyed gold.

He'd shown her the farmhouse where he'd been born, the pole barns where he'd worked the harvest as a boy, and then the grove proper, where he and his two brothers spent the off hours of their youth running wild between the trees, playing demigods and titans and generals.

They'd walked a slow circle around the farm's inner grounds, and when they looped back around to the entrance of the grove, he was telling her how the farm had passed down from his parents to his eldest brother.

"When he died, his widow sold the farm and returned to her family on Delos." His lips stretched, frowning, and his eye glimmered with old grief and unshed tears. "She offered to sell it to me first, but what would my sea legs do with a place like this?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's for the best. I'd never be here to work the land, and there's nothing sadder than good farmland left to waste." His frown curved upwards. "No, Poseidon gave me the gifts of his seas. Even now, I can hear the waves calling."

"Every ship needs a port. Perhaps one day this'll be yours again."

"I like the way you think! Perhaps you're right." He was quiet for a moment, then he reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder. "There _was_ something else I wanted to talk to you about, Kassandra."

"What is it?"

"You need to be careful with Gelon. There's a soft heart underneath that crabshell of hers."

She threw up her hands. "For the last time, nothing happened between us!"

"You spent all night flirting with everyone on the crew, and she took you up on what you were offering. No shame in that — it's a beautiful thing!" His eye twinkled merrily. He was enjoying this far too much.

"Kassandra did _what_ now?"

Kassandra's eyes widened at the sound.

"Kyra! Good to see you," Barnabas said, as Kyra joined them at the entrance. Kassandra hadn't even heard her approaching.

"Barnabas! If I had known you'd be here, I would've brought that song by Sappho you asked me about."

"Kassandra doesn't always mention every detail."

"No, she doesn't." They both turned and looked at her, and she wondered how it was possible to become the outsider so quickly.

"What brings you all the way out here?" he asked Kyra.

"Kassandra said she wanted to talk to me."

"Oh she did, did she?" Barnabas's good eye traveled from Kyra to Kassandra and back. Then he gave them a knowing look and said, "Gelon will be _so_ disappointed."

"You _malaka_ ," Kassandra growled.

"I've kept you long enough, Commander," he said, and then to Kyra, "We'll trade songs another time." Then he bowed with a flourish, and headed back up the road, whistling a jaunty tune.

Leaving Kassandra alone with Kyra.

She hadn't even decided what she was going to say yet. "Let's find somewhere to sit," she said. It would buy her time.

Further up the hill, they stopped at a level patch of grass beneath an ancient olive tree, its trunk like petrified smoke twisting up into limbs that spread outwards in a wide circle. Sunlight filtered through its crown of leaves and dappled the ground with yellow light sliced by blades of shadow.

Kyra folded herself down onto the grass, and Kassandra chose a spot a safe distance away, outside of easy reach, where she wouldn't be able to feel the warmth of Kyra's skin or smell the laurel in her hair.

She was still figuring out what to say when Kyra spoke first.

"Did you really sleep with this... Gelon?"

That wasn't the question Kassandra had been expecting. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. What's it to you?" Sharp words from her sharp edges.

"Nothing. Forget I asked."

Pensive silence. Kyra sat with a hunter's stillness, her chest barely moving in and out as she breathed, her patience infinite.

It was Kassandra who shifted restlessly, who picked at the grass with her fingers, who finally cracked under the weight of the silence. "I didn't sleep with anyone," she said. "I just got very, very drunk."

Kyra turned to her. "I'm sorry." She even seemed like she meant it.

"You didn't pour the wine down my throat." Kyra had certainly inspired it most of the way there, but Kassandra had done the rest despite knowing full well that getting drunk never took the right memories away in the end. She shrugged. "Barnabas and the crew have been enjoying a good laugh at my expense." She could do this, she decided. She could sit next to Kyra at this distance and pretend her heart wasn't trying to squeeze itself out between her ribs.

"Must've been a rare sight," Kyra murmured.

Kassandra felt herself being studied, but she kept her gaze fixed on the grove of trees on display before them. The sunlight had shifted enough to burnish the treetops on the far hillside to bronze, and the sea had darkened to a rich carpet of blue.

"You found Thaletas's missing helm. Why?"

"He asked me to look for it. I found myself near the wreck of his ship. I tracked it down and brought it to you." She said it knowing she hadn't answered the right question.

Kyra sat quietly. Waiting. Expecting more.

"I heard something... while I was searching for that helm."

"What about?"

"You, actually."

"Oh?"

Kassandra finally turned and faced Kyra, at the moment when her words had deserted her completely. "I don't know how else to say this."

"Now you're worrying me."

"Do you know who your father is?"

The question took Kyra aback. "No," she said, carefully. "I don't remember him, and he was never around. My mother told me he was a soldier, but every time I asked about him, she said he was far away." Her forehead creased in confusion. "What's this about?"

Kassandra reached into her belt pouch and pulled out the scraps of papyrus and the wooden dolls, and handed them over wordlessly.

Kyra cradled the dolls in her palm and pieced together the fragments. A tremor passed through her hands as she read them, making the arms and legs of the dolls clack together softly. "Impossible," she said under her breath. Then louder, and to Kassandra, "What sort of joke is this?"

"It's not a joke."

"These were my dolls. Where did you find them?"

"While I was at the orphan camp, a woman told me to search an abandoned house in the drowned city. That you'd be in danger if I didn't. So I went, and I found these dolls and these scraps."

"You were at the orphan camp? What woman?"

"She said her name was Otonia."

"Otonia? She teeters on the edge of madness."

"She was right about what I'd find in that house," Kassandra said, gesturing at the scraps. "In the wrong hands, even this would be enough to discredit you."

"There's no proof of anything here."

"That's true. But you know how powerful doubt and suspicion can be."

Kyra lifted her eyes and stared out over the grove. "Dianthe was my mother. I can still hear her screams. A storm of blue armor and red blades tore through our home, appearing out of nowhere." Whatever she was seeing, it wasn't golden leaves and gnarled trunks and rolling hillsides.

Kassandra stayed silent.

"I had to run through her blood to escape. I never returned to that place." She was trembling now, and Kassandra had to resist the urge to reach out to her, to pull her into her arms.

A rust colored outline on the stone. A body left without dignity. "It's good that you didn't."

Kyra said nothing for a long time. Eventually, her trembling slowed, then stopped, and her neck and shoulders lifted and straightened, as if someone had pulled her up and replaced her spine with the shaft of a spear. "I will never believe that man is my father," she said, her voice as tight and set as the muscles in her jaw.

With the evidence no longer out in the open, Kyra could believe whatever she wanted.

She tossed the dolls onto the grass and tucked the scraps into the pouch she kept tied at her waist. "You could have made a lot of drachmae with this, but instead, you brought it to me — even though you really don't want to see me right now. Why?"

"Like I said, it could have put you in danger. Now it won't."

"You didn't answer my question properly, earlier. About Thaletas's helm."

"What is this, an interrogation?"

"I ask because you don't give up anything about yourself willingly." She leaned forward. "Tell me why you went to Thaletas."

"I don't know," Kassandra said, but she shook her head as soon as the words crossed her lips, knowing they were false. "No, I take that back." The shadows of the leaves quivered in the breeze, an army's worth of dark little blades waving back and forth. "If I'm going to come in second to someone, I want to know who beat me."

Silence.

"It gave me an excuse to talk to him. See him with his men. Learn more about him." She was dangerously close to babbling. She closed her mouth.

"And did you?"

"Yes. He's a fine match for you, I think. He'll treat you well, as you should be."

Kyra sighed. "This was never a competition."

Oh, but it was, from the moment Kyra's knife sank deep into that pillar next to Kassandra's head, the first time they'd seen each other, all those days ago.

"Look at me, Kassandra."

She hadn't noticed the iron-dark smudges under Kyra's eyes until now, and there were fine lines at their corners where her skin was drawn tight. That was as much looking as Kassandra could manage. Easier to watch the blades of shadow wage ineffective war against the blades of grass.

Kyra slid closer, a movement she made graceful somehow, and she reached out and lifted Kassandra's chin. "You're not the only one who drank too much last night."

Kassandra didn't know what to say to that, caught between the fingers that held her chin and Kyra's eyes, as black and bottomless as still water under a moonless sky. Then the fingers moved, sliding over her skin as Kyra's hand cupped her cheek. It felt so good it made Kassandra close her eyes and draw in a breath. _You breathe life into me._ She could lose herself in that feeling.

When she opened her eyes again, she said, "If you don't want me, please don't do this."

Kyra pulled her hand away, placed it in her lap, studied it like she'd never seen it before. "I don't know what I want." Kassandra's cheek was still warm where she'd touched it. "Or maybe I do." Her face clouded over like a spring storm, emotions churning, churning. "All I know for certain is that when I'm alone, I think of you."

"Don't do this," Kassandra whispered. Hope was a living thing, and Kyra was playing with her by keeping it alive, batting it between her paws, toying with it.

"I need time to think. By myself."

"All right."

"I'll think. Figure out what I want. Then I'll find you."

"When?"

"Soon." She smiled gently. "I promise."

Kassandra nodded, then looked away. The trees on the far hillside now wore crowns of golden fire.

Kyra climbed to her feet. "Kassandra?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for telling me. Here. Like this."

Kassandra nodded again but said nothing. She felt the air move as Kyra moved and listened to her footsteps fade, and after a long time had passed and the golden fires had gone out and the sun had set into twilight, she looked down at the grass, at the impression that would soon disappear as if Kyra had never been there at all, and saw that Kyra had taken the dolls with her.

**Author's Note:**

> For fishbone76, who wanted ALL the words.


End file.
